Simone Czech
Deputy Secretary
Child Protection and Permanency,
Districts and Youth Justice Services
Department of Justice
11th Dec. 2020
Dear Minister and Mr Coutts-Trotter
re John Smith
Dear Simone
Your undated letter to me arrived in the mail today. My response:
I have not asked DCJ to share information, "as the matter is before the court". Wearing my journalist's hat, I have asked questions. The Minister and Secretary have declined to answer any of them and, as you make clear in your letter, have no intention of answering any of them.
As for the court process, it is deeply flawed. The evidence in support of this statement is plain to see for anyone within FACS interested in looking. It seems that neither the Minister nor the Secretary are. As I pointed out to the Minister and Secretary yesterday, FACS's own lawyer, Mr Whelan, deliberately misleading Magistrate (redacted) on 16th Nov. So did Dr Ainsworth and Robert Mc Lachlan; all three withholding from Magistrate (redacted) documents pertinent to the case.
As a journalist who believes government bureaucrats should be transparent and accountable, a journalist whose job it to get as close as possible to the truth, my questions are valid one, bearing in mind, of course, that the identities of the family members involved are not revealed..
Your reference to my letter of 16th Nov regarding Sally's request that I not advocate for her anymore is worthy of comment:
(1) There is a tacit acknowledgement in your letter that I had, prior to 16th Nov, been advocating on Sally's behalf - despite DCJ/FACS' refusal to treat me as an advocate. My multiple requests to be informed as to how I could, within the DCJ/FACS framework, advocate, were ignored by DCJ/FACS. The only answer I was able to get was that Sally had a Guardian to advocate on her behalf. As you now know, this was a lie. Not only did Dr Ainsworth NOT advocate on Sally's behalf, he acted as a de facto advocate for DCJ/FACS, recommending to Magistrate (redacted) a course of action that he knew to be contrary to Sally wishes and express instructions.
(2) At the time I sought permission to advocate on Sally's behalf, she was at a low ebb, depressed, and not in a position to effectively argue her case. Having only got involved, in the first place, with an offer to supervise visits, I could see she needed help and offered it. It was accepted and she wrote to DCJ/FACS to inform (redacted) FACS of this.
After a couple of months Sally feared that my advocating might be damaging her chances of getting John returned to her care. Indeed, this is what both FACS and Dr Ainsworth informed Sally. I then took my 'advocate hat' off and put on my journalists hat, as I could see that the problems Sally was confronting were systemic.
(3) As I think will be apparent from the correspondence DCJ/FACS is receiving from Sally now, she has regained her fighting spirit, realising that the FACS wagons have circled around JK, and that Michael Coutts-Trotter is not going to intervene.
Given that Michael has recommended to Magistrate (redacted) that restoration of John to his mother should not happen, he has intervened in a most profound way. As Secretary, knowing full well that Magistrate (redacted) will follow his advice, he is in the process of denying a (redacted) year old boy the right to grow through adolescence and into young adulthood with his mother. Michael has given his stamp of approval to the fostering of a (redacted) year old boy to a man who has had three AVOs taken out against him and who has lied to DCJ/FACS about his relationship status and where he intends John to live.
It did not have to be this way. At any point in the past three months, Michael CT could have instructed (redacted) FACS to explore alternative placements for John. He did not.
Did Michael ever ask (redacted) FACS to present him with alternative placements for John?
Magistrate (redacted) has decreed that restoration is not possible but not where John should reside when he leaves his current foster home. She awaits advice from DCJ/FACS.
As Michael has known for three months now (or should have known, if he was properly briefed) there are three alternative placements to (Father # 2) (redacted) FACS has chosen to ignore these three alternatives. It is within Michael's power now, and will be up until 20th December, to insist that these three alternatives be properly explored.
Your assertion that there is nothing Michael can do is quite simply incorrect. He can take this matter out of the hands of (redacted) FACS today and place it in the hands of competent and experienced FACS staff who have not been infected with confirmation bias, who do not have an axe to grind, who do not need to persist with the fiction that Sally poses some threat to John, but are able to begin with a clean slate. Competent FACS staff need to talk with Sally and John separately and together, and to spend time with them in a non-note-taking context that approximates the real world. They need to be perceptive enough to pick up clues as to the nature and quality of Sally's and John's relationship and not concern themselves with the content of the conversation between mother and son. If Sally wants to talk with John about gender issues, this is no business of FACS. And if Sally and John disagree about how they wish to spend their time together, what of it? Anyone who has been a 12 year old boy, or parent to a 12 year old boy, knows that such disagreements, arguments even, are part and parcel of growing from childhood into adolescence.
To assess Sally and John afresh will require that the 21st. Dec court date be vacated. A new date could be set in January.
As for (Father # 2's) 3 AVOs, I would like to point out that I have had no AVOs taken out against me, and yet FACS will not allow me to join Sally and John in a cafe to drink a hot chocolate because I might pose some threat to the boy? Really, Simone. What nonsense. Regardless of my experience (extensive) and my working with children accreditation, DCJ/FACS could have, at any point in the past three months, come to my home and talked with me in person to see if I would be a suitable person to supervise visits or, as I have offered, to foster John. Why have these two options not been explored? Why has the option presented by (redacted) not been explored? Or the offer made by Sally's friend, (redacted), in (redacted)?
Michael can instruct FACS staff today to explore them. And he should.
Finally, the notion that DCJ is working with Sally to maintain and encourage her relationship with John is Orwellian doublespeak. Are you a mother, Simone? Would you consider 2 hours a fortnight spent with your son or daughter, in a library, with a stranger present taking notes, to be 'family time'? And, if you were to cry when you kissed your child goodbye, how would you feel if this was seen as evidence, by a totally unqualified stranger you have never met before, of your emotional dysregulation, how would you feel? I find it unbelievable, in 2020, that such a Kafkaesque scenario exists within DCJ/FACS; unbelievable that those working inside the DCJ/FACS bubble cannot even recognise how inhuman and damaging such a scenario is. DCJ/FACS is in need of radical change.
Michael needs to fix this mess before 21st Dec, one way or another. Blaming the Children's Court is not going to pass the pub test.
yours sincerely
James Ricketson
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